When Presidents Lied or Misled U.S. to War-- Part 4: Lincoln and FDR Are Exceptions

Michael Beschloss does give two examples of American war presidents who did not follow the other three:  Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt.  He says the two waged war for higher moral purposes (saving the Union, abolishing slavery, defending democracy from Fascism).

And, they educated the public about why the country was sacrificing so many lives and so much money, though he does discuss FDR's internment camps and Lincoln's suspension of habeus corpus among other wartime abuses of power.

--Cooter

Canadian World War I Internment Camps

From the September 2, 2012, Spectrum "First World War internment camps a 'difficult scar' for Canadian Ukrainians" by Bill Graveland.

I didn't know about World War I internment camps and never would have guessed they had them in Canada.

Arrested, declared "enemy alien" and shipped off to do hard labor, more than 8,000 German, Austra-Hungarian and Turkish Canadians were put in the camps.  The Canadian government identified 80,000 as enemy aliens and 8.600 were sent to 24 internment camps.

Four of the camps were in the Canadian Rockies to which a majority of Ukranian descent people were sent.  This part of Canadian history has largely been overlooked.

The Harper government set up a $10 million Canadian First World War Internment Recognition Fund in 2008. 

More than 100 died in those four camps, six while trying to escape.

Little remains of the Castle Mountain Internment Camp in Banff National Park other than a commemorative sign, though it once held 660 prisoners under extremely harsh conditions.

Stuff I Didn't Know.  --Cooter